Olipop sold nostalgia, tested online, scaled in grocery.
Root beer and cola with 2–5g of sugar took on Coke and Pepsi. A subscription site and free cans fed a rollout to about 50,000 stores and $500M+ in 2025 sales.
BLOOM10X did not work with Olipop. This breakdown uses public sources only, linked below.
- 2019Launches in 40 Northern California stores, $852K in year one
- 2021Creator affiliate program starts
- Feb 2023Its root beer outsells A&W at a top US retailer
- 2024Profitable, $400M+ in sales
- Feb 2025$1.85B valuation, about 50,000 stores
- Aug 2026Passes $500M in 2025 sales, names an outside CEO
Olipop is private. These are company statements reported by the press, not audited figures.
What the public figures add up to.
Each tile uses only cited inputs. “Our math” is plain arithmetic on them, never an estimate.
Five plays behind the growth.
-
Sell the old flavor, not the fiber
The first flavors copied soda people grew up on: strawberry vanilla from a childhood candy, a cola, then root beer (4). In February 2023 its root beer outsold A&W at a top US retailer (2). By 2025 about half its growth came from people who already drank regular soda (6).
Goodwin keeps the health claim small on the can, saying too much of it “interrupts the indulgent part” (3).
Copy this: name the product your buyer already loves and open the ad with it. Put your benefit in second place.
-
Use the website as a lab
The site brought in 15–20% of revenue, mostly on subscription, and was run for loyalty rather than reach (3). Subscribers built a flavor request list in the thousands, and texters got new flavors 48 hours before anyone else (4).
One launch text sold about $30,000 in 15 minutes. Subscriptions are opt-in, and a text before each shipment lets people change or skip it (4).
Copy this: launch every new product to subscribers and your text list first. Their first 48 hours tell you what to make more of.
-
Hand out cans, write down what people say
Olipop started in grocery, not online (4). In-store demos and brand ambassadors told it “cinnamon cola is a problem”, so it became Vintage Cola with the formula barely changed (4).
Ambassadors still run sampling drops in parks, campuses and stores, and log how many samples went out and what people said (10).
Copy this: sample where your buyers already are, and give whoever hands out product a three-question form to fill in after.
-
Pay creators in product and commission
Since 2021 creators get a $36 variety pack and at least 10% commission, with no posting rules (5). Their share of sales went from 4% in 2021 to 12% in 2024, at an average 982% return, per its affiliate platform (5).
Small creators grew from 3% to about 20% of creator sales. 82 registered dietitians joined without the 10,000-follower minimum (5).
Copy this: send product to 50 small creators with a personal code. Pay on sales, then run the best posts as ads.
-
Take repeat buyers to grocery
Stores went from 40 in 2019 to 20,000 in April 2023 and about 50,000 by February 2025 (1, 2, 7). Its repeat rate was 2.5 times the grocery norm for drinks (3).
Sales doubled to $400M+ in 2024, the year it turned profitable, and it raised at $1.85B (6).
Copy this: before you pitch a retailer, pull your repeat rate and subscriber count from Shopify. That is the proof buyers ask for.
“A lot of people assume that we were a digitally native brand, but we actually weren't.”
Sales climbed with the store count.
Sales by year
Stores scale, the site listens
“OLIPOP is leveraging deep childhood memories and our aim was to tap into nostalgia and shared social moments.”
How “ahhh, that’s the good stuff” sells.
A 30-second spot with 2.04M views on Olipop’s YouTube (Jan 2025). Our wireframe, built from its transcript and description, not its footage.
- 1Hook: “woah. I live here?”A grown woman’s childhood self walks into her home. Nostalgia lands before the product does.
- 2Comedy keeps people watchingThe kid asks about a pony and who she married. No product talk yet.
- 3The permission line“And we get to drink soda before bedtime?” Soda is the treat a kid wasn’t allowed.
- 4One reason to believe“It’s got less sugar and good stuff like fiber now.” The only claim, said once, in plain words.
- 5End on the jokeThe last line is a punchline, not a pitch.
- 6Offer in the description“Give it a try today” and the site link. No discount.
Three official Olipop videos to study.
Taste, a Walmart pack, a creator recipe.
Olipop’s Meta page had no active US ads on Nov 10, 2026. These four ran this summer and all stopped on Sep 1, 2026.
“Like sipping a fizzy apple orchard…”
An illustrated video that sells the flavor first. The fiber line sits in small type under the headline: “With 6g fiber for digestive health support.”
“Exclusively at @walmart”
A picnic-spread carousel for a new 8-pack with Raspberry Sherbet and Lemon Lime, sold only at Walmart for a limited time.
Paid social used to drive people into a store, not to the site.
“Cherry Espresso Martini Spritz”
A partnership ad: it runs under the creator’s name “with Olipop,” tagged #olipoppartner, and the copy is the recipe itself.
The creator’s own video, boosted by the brand.
“someone get us a floatie”
A short vertical video with a one-line caption and no offer, no claim and no price.
Screenshots from the Meta Ad Library, taken Nov 10, 2026. Click an image to enlarge.
On sale, the box sells two cases.
On Nov 10, 2026 the Vintage Cola page ran its Black Friday offer inside the buy box. Tap a number to see what each part does.
- 1Flavor firstA dropdown to switch flavors without leaving the page.
- 2One pack sizeThe 9g fiber Vintage Cola comes as a 12-pack only.
- 3The sale, in the boxOne Time, “50% Off,” $17.99 against $35.99. Our math: $17.99 ÷ 12 = $1.50 a can, from $3.00.
- 4The conditionThe 50% needs 2 or more cases, mixed and matched. Our math: the lowest sale order is 2 × $17.99 = $35.98 for 24 cans.
- 5Quantity next to the buttonA stepper sits beside “Add to Cart,” so a second case is one tap.
- 6A cause at checkout1% of the order goes to a nonprofit the buyer picks in the cart, “at no extra cost.”
Prices seen during the early Black Friday sale; the regular one-time price is $35.99 for 12 cans.
Read it with three caveats.
- Retail is most of the business. At 15–20% from the site, 80% or more came through other channels, led by grocery (3). For most Shopify brands the site is the store, so the subscription has to pay on its own.
- Grocery takes capital. Olipop had raised $55.4M by January 2023, then $50M more in 2025 (2, 6). In May 2026 Axios reported a $200M+ raise after deal talks stalled (8).
- A trend helped. #guttok passed 700M TikTok views in early 2023 as searches for Olipop spiked (1).
- What we’d change: publish the subscriber offer in the ads, not only on the site. A $3.00 can drops to $2.55 on subscription (11), and that is the hook for a brand without shelves.
Six moves for a $1M–$10M Shopify brand.
- Open your next ad with the familiar thing your buyer already loves. Creative
- Launch new products to subscribers and your text list 48 hours early. Retention
- Check a subscribe-and-save discount against your margin first. Margin calculator
- Price what a subscriber is worth before you pay to get one. LTV calculator
- Gift product to 50 small creators, with a code and commission. Seeding
- Run the best creator posts as partnership ads. Partnership ads
Where every number comes from.
- Morgan Smith and Lauren Shamo, “How Olipop’s founders turned a $100,000 investment into a ‘healthier’ soda brand bringing in $20 million a month,” CNBC Make It, Sep 16, 2023. cnbc.com
- Amelia Lucas, “Prebiotic soda Olipop approaches $200 million in annual sales, and CEO says Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have already come knocking,” CNBC, Apr 29, 2023. cnbc.com
- Clara Ludmir, “3 Lessons From The Co-Founder Of OLIPOP, America’s Fastest-Growing Functional Beverage Brand,” Forbes, Aug 17, 2023. forbes.com
- Felix Thea with Ben Goodwin and David Lester, “Olipop Founders on Building a Healthy Soda Brand,” Shopify Masters, Nov 2, 2021. shopify.com
- Kellie Davis, “Building a profitable creator community: How OLIPOP’s hybrid commission approach drives 12% of sales,” impact.com, May 13, 2025. impact.com
- Amelia Lucas, “Prebiotic soda brand Olipop valued at $1.85 billion in latest funding round,” CNBC, Feb 12, 2025. cnbc.com
- Christopher Doering, “Olipop valued at nearly $2B following latest funding round,” Food Dive, Feb 12, 2025. fooddive.com
- “Scoop: Olipop raising another $200 million,” Axios Pro, May 1, 2026. axios.com
- Laurel Deppen, “Olipop taps Electrolit head as next CEO,” Food Dive, Aug 12, 2026. fooddive.com
- Olipop, “OLIPOP Brand Ambassadors,” viewed Nov 10, 2026. drinkolipop.com/pages/brand-ambassadors
- Olipop, Vintage Cola product page (12-pack price and subscription offer), viewed Nov 10, 2026. drinkolipop.com/products/vintage-cola
- Meta Ad Library, Olipop page, ads 1571970701297354, 1539289274557838, 2784987378554493 and 1026423686648784, viewed Nov 10, 2026. facebook.com/ads/library
- Olipop, official YouTube channel: “OLIPOP - ahhh, that’s the good stuff” (Jan 5, 2025), “Ditch the zero. Switch to OLIPOP.” (Jun 3, 2021), “OLIPOP: A Good Start” (May 19, 2026). youtube.com/@OLIPOP
